This is meeee in junior high. I don’t remember the occasion or the venue and neither does the photographer, The Beautiful Mimi, who took this with her Polaroid camera. It was on a photo board at a class reunion (40th maybe?) and I grabbed a pic of it with my iPhone.

I so so so wanted to be a party girl, in with the in crowd, etc. I was not. I was a nerd. I am still a nerd but I long ago learned to OWN being a nerd. I am also more popular as an adult although I am an introvert and pick my social activities carefully.
But being a nerd in junior high (7th-8th grade in an ancient rattle-trap building in a perpetually economically depressed northern outpost city) did not equate to being a popular party girl.

The gal to the right of me is Cindy. When I entered junior high, I wasn’t put into classes with the friends I had known since birth or Sunday School or grade school. I kinda didn’t know anyone. Cindy was new in town and this *new girl* befriended *meeee*, a third generation child of a prominent local family. I don’t actually remember a whole lot about our friendship but I remember how sweet and funny she was and I was sad when she moved with her family the next year. I think her dad was a pastor and probably had different postings.

My journey into whatever popularity I have as an adult began on the bottom rungs of boyfriend-ism. You’re a freshman and somebody says a cute sophomore(!) guy likes you and you are gobsmacked and he gives you his big Indian head ring (that you have to wrap with yarn to fit it onto your mini-finger). People notice you differently? Maybe? Or were they already noticing you but afraid to approach you? Maybe… Anyway, he eventually breaks up with you, which breaks your heart but you meet somebody else and somebody else yadda yadda yadda. You gain bits of confidence throughout all of this and learn how to deal with men… Eventually you hook up with the GG who gives you children and a wonderful family of in-laws and helps you take care of your mother when she is at the end of her life. My parents and family were/are wonderful but my small northern outpost city was difficult to grow up in, especially as I was always expected to be somebody who I sorta was and sorta wasn’t. It’s very complicated and I am still trying to figger it out.

I still love the Indian head ring guy but just as a memory. He has a good life and so do I and we are long over each other.

So here I am, a popular woman when I do interact with people but I don’t usually because I am also a huge introvert with social anxiety. In the end, this is all just a bunch of navel gazing🐸

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